Rutgers adds $3M real estate chair

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January 7, 2013 at 12:18 PM

Rutgers Business School, in Newark, is on the market for a Class A real estate professor.The school on Monday announced a new, $3 million chair in real estate. The position will be named after Paul V. Profeta, president and owner of Paul V. Proteta and Associates Inc., who donated $1.5 million to the post.

The other $1.5 million was provided by an anonymous donor who pledged $27 million toward Rutgers' "Endowed Chair Challenge," which aims to bring 18 "world-class" faculty to Rutgers as part of the university's billion-dollar "Our Rutgers, Our Future" campaign.

Once hired, the new chair's job will be to set up an MBA concentration in real estate and do international research, in addition to working with students.

In a press release announcing the new chair, the business school's dean, Glenn R. Shafer, said there's a growing need for real estate professionals with high-level expertise.

"New demands for financial sophistication in real estate, along with expectations for sustainability and increasing regulation, have created an unmet demand in New Jersey for personnel trained in finance, accounting and supply-chain management in the field of real state," Shafer said.

Profeta is a former adjunct professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Business. He's also been heavily involved with Rutgers Business School, particularly in efforts to launch and support minority-owned businesses. In 2008, he founded the Profeta Urban Investment Foundation at Rutgers Business School, which gives free consulting advice and seed capital money to minority owned businesses. He also serves on the business school's Board of Advisers.

"Having Rutgers Business School focus on real estate will be hugely beneficial for companies involved in this complex sector," Profeta said.

Daniel Stoll, a business school spokesman, said the school hopes to have the new chair in place by September, when the next school year starts. The chair would then begin developing the real estate MBA concentration, with the goal of offering the concentration beginning in the 2014-2015 school year.